10 ms·

The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

• Sheepsteak 11y ago
  "…taking the 10-hour redeye on Sunday nights and returning on Thursdays. This way, he says, he doesn’t have to uproot his family of 10 kids." No wonder he spends most of the week away!
  • mirceal 11y ago
    maybe it's his family of 10 [binary] kids :) and yes, 10 kids is can be overwhelming. hell, even 2-3 kids can be overwhelming.
• technofiend 11y ago
  Is this the next "I work 27 hour days and never leave the office" thing people will brag about? I understand keeping a family together is good parenting but is choosing to spend 3-4 days a week elsewhere good parenting? I would question that versus relocating them if needed.
  • omonra 11y ago
    But if someone works relatively long hours they may not see their kids much regardless. For example if someone works on Wall St - they may have to leave the house at 6am and be home at 8pm. That doesn't leave a lot of time to see young kids.
    • staticelf 11y ago
      In more developed countries we have laws that protect workers for such long hours.
      • paulojreis 11y ago
        And those are clearly working, right?
        • adrianN 11y ago
          They're working pretty well here in Germany.
        • drjohnkasanders 11y ago
          Laws never stopped big companies or employers that wanted a job done...
          • paulojreis 11y ago
            Exactly. Particularly when they're written by and for said companies, or the ones who own them.
        • lagadu 11y ago
          Looking around... yes. It's working fine.
  • cmarschner 11y ago
    Being at home tired Fridays to Sunday afternoons is not what I would call good parenting. It means the wife (and I guess we're mostly talking about women here) is carrying the family.
    • dwd 11y ago
      Spot on - the wife/partner carrying the family is the biggest issue in my daily 4hr commute. Also an issue is just not able to be there in an emergency. For example, my wife locked herself out of the house yesterday and fortunately her parents who are close have a spare key. But children or pets get sick/injured and you really need to be close and that is always a worry.
• adrianN 11y ago
  This is crazy. I'd rather take a low paying job somewhere close if I can't move for some reason than spending half my life commuting. Currently I feel that my 20 minute bike commute is pretty long, but I couldn't find a nice apartment closer to work.
• aaron695 11y ago
  Wait till cars become automatic. 4 hour per day commutes could become quite normal. It could really change the structure of living in cities.
  • skrause 11y ago
    A four hour commute with a self-driving car will be just as painful as four hour communute with a train, except that the cost with the car will be much higher. I honestly don't see self-driving cars changing a lot here.
    • stingraycharles 11y ago
      Well it will be much more like a private driver. A more quiet experience with less overhead (waiting, transfers, etc).
    • grrowl 11y ago
      You can work, read, and telecommute without distraction during an automatic car drive.
      • skrause 11y ago
        You can do that in most trains, too.
    • finance-geek 11y ago
      Not quite. It will be painful from a family standpoint (cannot have breakfast/dinner with family) but commute-wise I would imagine a much better experience: 1. You would be guaranteed a seat. Even when I get a seat on the MetroNorth, the first and last miles are painful -- it still requires a 45min standing subway ride to Grand Central and a 10 minute standing ride from the station to the office. Same thing on the way back. 2. You would be able to sleep in the car since it would likely not require transfers or the risk of missing your stop 3. You could keep all your stuff in your car - laptops, books, etc. The space I have in a NYC subway car is pretty minimal
    • 11y ago
• timetravel3r 11y ago
  What an odd sentence in the article: "But a more child-centered approach to parenting also seems to be a factor, as these executives make other major sacrifices in order to balance their professional and home lives." I would argue that not having a parent at home in the evening (because they are commuting) is the opposite of child-centric. Yes, they get a nice suburban home and parks, but what about parental bonding?
  • dclowd9901 11y ago
    And they kept saying "I didn't want to uproot my family blah blah." Is there no value in exposing your children to unique and different experiences? I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives.
    • dba7dba 11y ago
      >> I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives. I grew up in a family that had to move around a lot, to the point where I attended 3 different elementary schools, 2 different junior highs and 1 high school. We were not rich but poor. And I SO WISH I had grown up in same neighborhood so that I could've have made some friends in my childhood. You can go live in different towns/cities when you are older. For kids, I highly recommend for kids to have stable environment with mostly same friends at least until college time.
      • voidz 11y ago
        I agree, having grown up similarly. It's very important to be able to grow roots. Not being able to because of frequently relocating can cause a permanent feeling of being disconnected throughout adult lifehood as a result.
        • dclowd9901 11y ago
          News flash: I grew up in the same area for 30 years and still feel disconnected. What you're experiencing is ennui.
• shin_lao 11y ago
  Those very long commutes are actually the perfect way to be away from the family while looking as someone who sacrifices everything for it.
• pmiller2 11y ago
  And here I thought my hour commute was kind of long. I dread the thought of even increasing it to 90 minutes. I wonder if flying this much is ever a wise decision in light of the health risks: http://www.fastcompany.com/3050543/hit-the-ground-running/why-frequent-business-travel-is-so-bad-for-you http://www.fastcompany.com/3050543/hit-the-ground-running/wh...
• gerbal 11y ago
  How is this new? This is the sort of thing the wealthy and the C-suite have been doing for decades. The internet makes parts of it a little easier, but it's not novel. The whole conceit of the Concorde was Executives could live in New York and work in London or vice versa.
  • bryanlarsen 11y ago
    This is not just a 1% phenomenon. There are plenty of families where one partner commutes 2-3 hours each way on the greyhound bus because they can't find a job in the same town and can't afford to live on a single income.
    • danans 11y ago
      The examples in this article kind of are a 1% phenomenon. They are an active choice made by the commuters to spend a lot on airfare and (presumably pricey) accommodations, rather than just relocating their family to similarly luxurious accommodations closer to their workplace. In your example, you're talking about people for whom the choice of living closer never presents itself, due to unaffordability. The former is a luxury choice, the latter is a forced circumstance.
• ljk 11y ago
  This made me feel a little better about spending ~4hours a day on the bus commuting... always envy people who leave comments like "even 20 minutes is too long for me"
  • staticelf 11y ago
    You know.. IMO you shouldn't and you should consider to relocate or change your job. There are probably towns / cities that allow for a great job and a great place of living close enough that you don't have to commute for 4 hours. I have as of now, approx. 20 minutes with the subway which I think is kind of long. But in my new job (in the process of changing it) it will be less. At summer time I will be able to bike to work in about 20 minutes. Also, it is a more meaningful place of work IMO. You can do that kind of change too.
    • ljk 11y ago
      Maybe it's just the beauty of being entry-level haha.... the stuff i'm working on is pretty interesting so I haven't really thought about about till recently, maybe i'll have to start thinking about it, thanks
• tylerpachal 11y ago
  Although I don't work remotely, I'm happy that the tech/software industry seems to be one of the best industries for allowing people to work remotely. I would guess that this is influenced by the nature of our work, and the improvements in collaboration/communication/workflow applications. Taking a 10-hour flight on a weekly basis would be too much for me, but then again he is the founder of an airline, so maybe he enjoys the flight!
• chubot 11y ago
  Sorry to use this occasion to brag about my commutes for the last 10+ years: 6 miles, 4 miles, 2 miles, and 4 miles. For the last 7+ years it's been 100% by bike. A 20-25 minute bike ride is actually better than a shorter commute because you get just enough exercise every day.
  • hobos_delight 11y ago
    Almost 1 year ago I gave up a 90-minute each way train commute in Sydney for a 20-minute cycle commute in Ireland (obviously there were other factors). I love the freedom to come and go when I please, and not be held up by seemingly random infrastructure failures that can ruin your whole evening. I've actually found myself extending the bike route to get a bit more exercise in (when it's not lashing that is).
    • kaitai 11y ago
      Yep. When's the last time a crash on the bike lane added 40 minutes to your commute (unless it was your crash)? Construction on the bike lane = extensive detour? Nope.
      • robbrulinski 11y ago
        I'm two years into my bike commute. I ran into a woman on the street as she was not paying attention.
• Jyaif 11y ago
  I would argue that it would be better for the kids to live abroad. They'd become bilingual for free, and most importantly it'd give them perspective and a better understanding of the world. Unless his kids are planning to become professional American football or lacrosse players, his justification seems very weak to me.
  • scottjad 11y ago
    The guy was born in Brazil, lived there till five, moved to the US, then lived in Brazil for two years as a missionary, and is now doing business there. He probably has a pretty good idea of how beneficial living in Brazil would be for his family. He's also very wealthy and can afford to give all his kids personal language tutors if he/they want to learn another language. The value of knowing Portuguese in the US is generally not that high (although obviously he's an outlier). They can travel internationally whenever they want. If they moved there, they wouldn't be living or going to school with your average Brazilian, they'd be living in a wealthy neighborhood and going to an English-language international school. They live in one of the wealthiest places in the US, so they probably attend very good schools right now. Since they're Mormon, many of these kids will end up being missionaries in foreign countries and learning another language anyway and getting a decent perspective on the world outside Connecticut since their living environment as a missionary will be roughly equivalent to the average person wherever they're assigned. Don't underestimate the importance of high school sports to kids that love them and are in high school. I'd rather my kids have four years of positive team sporting experience than learn Portuguese. One can learn and grow from sports in many ways even if they don't become a professional athlete. As for what will best help their career, it's probably the stable familiar living environment they currently have at a private school that will best prepare them to get into a good college and do well there. Being good at sports doesn't hurt either for getting into good colleges. Finally, he can easily sleep in first class for the two direct flights he takes per week and he can spend (potentially, we don't know how much he works on the weekends) Thursday (not sure how much of the day), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with his family. He can also potentially video conference with them every other evening. And they've probably come with him on occasion.
• guard-of-terra 11y ago
  This is a stupid way of living our lifes. Structuring your life quality, and structuring out cities for life quality, should become the norm. We should be eager to sacrifice work efficiency. Unfortunately our civilization took this wrong race-to-the-bottom turn where instead of ten 30 hrs/week jobs we have four 70 hrs/week jobs. This is wrong and unsustainable, and we're going to lose a lot of people to a combination of burning out, family failures, suicides and other bad stuff. In the century XXI, we should fight the network effect, not embrace it.
• creshal 11y ago
  > but what about parental bonding? That's considered paedophilia nowadays. /s
  • voidz 11y ago
    No, it is absolutely not. And your sarcasm qualifier is out of place, because it is no sarcasm, it's not even cynicism, but something even worse, although I lack the vocabulary. Please leave comments like this off HN.
  • dang 11y ago
    We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10337134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10337134 and marked it off-topic.
• dba7dba 11y ago
  I think SOME people enjoy the long commute to be away from family chores/responsibilities. If you have to make that LONG commute so that you can provide for the family and miss out on doing laundry or doing dishes, hey who's gonna complain? You can love your family more than anyone else, but you still don't want to do the chores.
• lrvick 11y ago
  If you are optimising for having nice accommodations for your family, but never see them, you get points as a provider I guess, but you fail at being a parent or spouse. I would of waaaay rather of lived in a trailer, and grown up actually having a father around, instead of some distant workaholic male figure that is the "great provider" that allowed an upper middle class lifestyle. For some I feel being far away making money to send home is the easy way out of having to actually be a parent.
  • saiya-jin 11y ago
    ... and by providing kids too much you actually spoil them easily and make... worse people out of them? or more likely they don't reach their potential as human beings, at least not that easily. I mean, look around you, there are usually plenty of people who had it damn easy in life. this generates weakness. I am very happy I had to work my way up by myself, no cash cushion, no free apartment when turning 18 etc.it builds character to rely only on oneself, a priceless and one of most important lessons in life. I say give kids good sporting equipment, give them free quality education (tricky bit in some places, but more expensive isn't automatically better for them), love them, support them and give them freedom, and you are excellent parent. rest is up to them.
  • hiram112 11y ago
    Part of raising kids is providing them with the means to excel - good nutrition, education, clothing, etc. In our society, this equates to money. While I understand it is not fair to trivialize a typical stay at home mother, it seems we've pushed the pendulum too far to the other side, where the typical working father is damned if he works a lot to pay the bills, and damned if he cuts down in order to take over more parenting duties. He's either a workaholic male or a deadbeat. Can't win. And yes I realize that some two parent families have reversed gender roles, but the statistics still show the stay-at-home mother and working father are typical, at least in the US.
• yitchelle 11y ago
  Is it a coincidence that the folks mentioned in the articles are in high profile high salary jobs? These folks has these commute already factored into their salary package. Here is a question, how many middle level managers or engineers are doing these type of crazy commutes in the US?
• paulojreis 11y ago
  Tangentially to the article, this whole sacrifice of personal life is starting to make me think about other options. And I don't even work long hours. Last week I had to travel, to work abroad for that week. To be there on Monday morning, I flew Sunday just after lunch. I missed around 25% of my weekend and all the "after-work" time and activities I usually have. I just moved (within the same city, a few days before traveling), and my girlfriend had to finish the packing, cleaning and all that fun stuff by herself. It was not a big deal actually, as it doesn't happen frequently, but - with this post - it got me thinking. Shouldn't we make a bigger deal of it? The fact that companies expects this kind of commitment - very outside working hours - reveals so much about the inequality in the employee-employer relationship. And I'm not even mentioning the fact that I work on a country where I'm paid x, but was traveling to work in a country where my fellow associates in similar functions are paid 4-5x. :)
  • cjhopman 11y ago
    It seems that the author assumes that readers uderstand that the comparison is between the described lives/jobs with ones in the past where it was basically you never see your family (or, more likely, you don't have one).
    • paulojreis 11y ago
      Yeah, sure, ergo tangentially.
• valdiorn 11y ago
  Hell, I'm already annoyed by the 20 minutes I spend on the tube here in London.
• sjclemmy 11y ago
  I've done various commutes in my working life. Nothing beats being able to walk to work: 1) It's not too far, 2) It's exercise - what's not to like? 3) It's always, ALWAYS, the same length of time. Which allows you to plan. 4) It's not too far. My least favourite commute is on the British motorways, one day it could take the minimum amount of time, the next it could be 4 times longer. This amount of variation adds to working stress levels. It's really difficult to plan to get something 'out of the way' in the morning when you don't even know if you'll be there in time. (btw, I walked to work this morning.)
  • osi 11y ago
    cycling is a close second. i used to live close enough to walk daily (~ 18min walk). i did it every day, through the chicago winters. we moved slightly farther so it is closer to a ~ 30m walk, and now cycling is more efficient since it is closer to ~ 12m. i agree that people vastly underestimate the value of this in their lives. (you have to experience it to know what you're missing)
  • mirceal 11y ago
    this you never really truly appreciate what impact your commute has until you have a 5 minutes walking commute. I did this at some point for around 1 year. It was awesome. 3) above did not apply though. I had to cross a really busy street (i.e. car traffic) and the pedestrian traffic light took around 2.5 minutes (I kid you not). Depending on that damn traffic light my commute time could be 4 minutes or 6+ minutes. Recall being really annoyed, to the point of hating the traffic light.
    • omouse 11y ago
      Indeed, it's something you can really appreciate on a university campus where most everything you need as a student is within 10 minutes of walking. Amazing how easily we give that up for a fat paycheck and a mortgage.
• littletimmy 11y ago
  Why do people sacrifice their lives for their work? It doesn't make any sense.
  • falcolas 11y ago
    For some folks, work is their life. It's the measuring stick by which they are defined, so they make it their sole goal. In the past, they were workaholics. Now they're just considered to be "passionate".
• omouse 11y ago
  I'm about to go from a 40min commute to an hour and a half commute (or so). It's quite astounding how many people commute in from the suburbs to downtown when it would be much easier and cheaper just to setup smaller offices in the suburbs or allow more remote work. It's also amazing to me that after 30+ years, the suburbs are barely built up. It's somehow economically sustainable to move a bunch of people from point A to point B but not to have point A built up with more shops, industry, etc.
  • adebtlawyer 11y ago
    Zoning won't allow it - the suburbs are not built up intentionally.